Editorial Tone

Posted Apr 29, 2004 21:08 UTC (Thu) by Ross (guest, #4065)
In reply to: Editorial Tone by jschrod
Parent article: Debian: too free?

Did I say that? (I assume you meant "didn't express")
Do you enjoy inserting words into people's mouths and then telling them how sad it is that they said those words?
How sad for you...

What I didn't appreciate was the tone in this:

If instead, it turns out there are significant numbers of people who believe their participation in Debian is really more about proving that they are Holier Than Stallman, those that *are* interested in making something useful for their users have their choice of either (a) trying to see if they have the votes to shut-out the fanatics, (b) try to build something useful that uses Debian as a base, and leaves the insanity behind, or (c) join the Fedora project, or some other distribution.

I thought those were written by the editor because I wasn't using a CSS compliant web browser. Now that I am, it is obvious they were written by Ted. In the other browser there was no indentation, italics, quotes, etc.

That's my fault. However I do take issue with the idea that it is impossible to meet both the goal of a free system and a usage system at the same time. This has been an argument against Linux from the beginning and I think it has been sufficiently demonstrated to be untrue. Even if every single font had to be thrown out there are many public domain fonts which could be used instead. And there is always non-free. Many people already depend on the non-free packages.

Editorial Tone

Posted Apr 29, 2004 22:16 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (1 responses)

No, you didn't say that explicitely. But your comments make your viewpoint quite clear. You're a Debian fan, and you don't like your distribution being dissed. OK, see, I'm not a Debian fan -- and I think my comments made this quite clear without the need to express that explicitely. I wanted to tease you, and I obviously succeeded. Welcome in the real world. This is not "putting words into someones mouth", this is infering somebody's opinion from the words he writes.

But since you took my jotted comments so earnestly and wrote a reasonable explanation, I'll answer you more seriously this time. There is one problem: IMNSHO the issue is not if it is possible to create a free and usable system. Here I agree fully with you, that's possible. The issue at hand is the definition of free according to Debian. Some people disagree about that definition. As an example: According to that definition, TeX (that's DEKs base system, not LaTeX) is not free. Ridiculous, if you want my opinion. And this is a very good example that shows that some Debian folks (influential and vocal ones) are indeed on the quest to show that they are Holier Than RMS.

As somebody who was/is involved in XEmacs and LaTeX development and who works since 1982 on free software (search my name in Google), I had my share of quarrels both with RMS and with Debian. And I tell you, RMS is a nice, logical, insightful, and reasonable person -- compared with the abusive folks from debian-legal. Their rude behaviour is mentioned quite often, I'm not alone in this experience. So for me, the editorial tells about the experiences with the Debian project, and actually in a polite way compared to the rudeness that I've experienced from parts of the Debian project. Thus, it reports facts. You may not like them (I don't like them either, having been on the receiving side of that rudeness), but these experiences are real and therefore are facts.

Cheers,
Joachim Schrod

Editorial Tone

Posted Apr 30, 2004 7:17 UTC (Fri) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link]

Your point about multiple definitions of "free" is well taken. I can
completely understand that an overly restrictive definition can be
counterproductive and exclude software and other works with resonable
licenses. I guess the problem is finding a scope and definition which
will provide strong protection for users without being so inflexible.

Maybe there should be different definitions for different types of works
or for different types of packages.

However you were wrong when you said that I'm a Debian fan. Yes, I've used
the distribution in the past, but I've been using Red Hat since 95 or so.
I used Slackware before that. I do find Debian's political nature
fascinating and I know it results in many flame wars and heated debates.
I'm sorry to hear that you have had bad experiences with some of them. I
guess being in the middle of it isn't as fun as watching from the outside.